covered in dust and dirt and straw and who knows what else… but more
importantly, I'm covered in love and hope and grace. Yesterday my
post title was "You came to serve and not to be served." Yes, I did.
But what I have earned this week by serving is way more precious than
anything else. It's one of those things where you cannot understand
until you have experienced it, but serving these people is a huge
blessing to ME… probably more to me than to them. We teach them duck
duck goose and knuckles and basketball, but they teach us about hope,
about complete trust in God, about profound love. To truly pray for
daily bread, to praise God so much for some bags of vegetables, to
genuinely pray for and believe that God will heal them, to sing
worship songs regularly… I love how they just break out into song
randomly throughout the day! They think they are the ones being
blessed by us being there, and they might be right. But I have just
been so blessed these past 2 days… so much has happened in 2 days. I
have had a blast and left every day with a full and heavy heart.
I am extremely exhausted so this is going to be short. I just about
fell asleep at dinner while Caleli was talking… which means I was
EXTREMELY tired because I love listening to him. And I don't have
long because we are going up to play games with the youth… yes, I said
I was tired. Playing Apples to Apples doesn't require any brain work…
processing a whole day and writing over 3 pages of thoughts DOES. So
therefore I will cut this short and go beat everyone in A2A ☺
Today we brought a whole bunch of bags of vegetables, so we unloaded
those as soon as we arrived. Nobody was there yet but Pastor's Wife,
so it was easy. So after we did that, we had a chicken hunt and tried
to catch a chicken. James, Flipper, Keely, and I chased baby chicks
through a field for the longest time… and James got attacked by the
mommy. It was sooo fun! And I got funny pictures of it except that I
can't upload them. Then slowly, kids started arriving. We only had a
row or two of seedlings left to plant so we took care of that (or,
rather, everyone else did and I stood there and captured the moment on
camera). Then we were finished and had the rest of the day to just
hang with the community people. It was simply amazing. The guys who
were busy all last year on working stuff, like dad, actually got to
play with the children and talk with Senzo and the other men and
women. And that's what we did the whole day. We played bubbles,
knuckles, soccer, basketball, and just sat and played around. We also
started taking pictures of every single kid. We have about 100 to go
though… that's tomorrow's job. This afternoon, we visited Ngobile
again and she is improving. We also got to see all the kids eat their
lunch and went right back to playing. And tomorrow we don't have
anything to do either so we will just play, get the rest of the
children photographed (with name cards, thought this would make you
very happy mom!), and pass out all the clothing we brought.
And Nongcebo didn't show up today… obviously, if she had she would
have been the topic of tonight's post! Her gogo said she is on her
way. She is still traveling from her new town… but she will be here
to see me! I was promised that! I hope it happens!! But honestly, I
will be okay if it doesn't. today while I was thinking about her and
her not being here I realized God's plan behind it… or rather he
showed me his plan. If N had been here I would not have bonded so
much with the other children. The 6-year-old girl who was my shadow
this afternoon would not have gotten so much attention. And the
abusive little boy would not have become the sweetest-as-can-be little
boy without all the one on one affection and love he gets in the
morning when he's one of the only children. I came here to see
Nongcebo, and hopefully God has answered my prayers just in a
different way as I imagined. I'll find out tomorrow! Her gogo knows
I miss her so much and am impatiently waiting to see her as I asked
her about 80 times today when N was coming. So I think she is making
sure she will be here.
But N or not, I just love it here. The people, the worship, the
hospitality. I could sit with hundreds of kids in my lap for months…
listen to then worship and watch them dance along to the rhythm… hear
them say my name, or more importantly, say "Jesus loves me!"… stand at
dinner during worship singing "I give my all" and truly mean it… being
centered with God and feeling his presence all around me. The song
Feels Like Home keeps coming to mind:
It feels like home to me… it feels like I'm all the way back where I belong
I belong here… and I honestly do not know how I am going to go back
home to cape.
**THIS JUST IN AT 10 PM: I JUST TALKED TO TEZZY AND SHE IS COMING
FRIDAY NIGHT TO SEE RILEY AND I!!! AHH! It was soooo awesome to hear
her voice again, her beautiful accent and all! I CANNOT WAIT UNTIL
FRIDAYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!
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